


Shutter Island

by kormanine



Category: Coraline (2009), ParaNorman (2012), The Boxtrolls (2014)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, asylum AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kormanine/pseuds/kormanine
Summary: In which three psychotic kids attempt to solve the mystery of Inimical Asylum.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	1. suffer

**suf·c.f.fer/ˈsəfər/**

**to undergo, be subjected to, or endure (pain, distress, injury, loss, or anything unpleasant)**

**✘**

**NORMAN** wants to rip his ears out.

It feels like the more he presses his sweating palms against his ears, the more persistent they grow. They are crying, screaming at him and he can't take it, hearing the suffering and pain that floods his head. He begins to brace himself as he pushes against his ears harder and harder, fain to the moment when his skull will finally crack under the pressure.

Make it stop.

Despite the unbroken state his head is still in, he already feels like he's  _ cracked _ .

His days of being completely silent soon end as he feels his teeth clench desperately, vocal cords hissing, "Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop . . ."

Talking to the lady with the plastic smile and small black notebook means giving them answers. And he doesn't want to give them anymore reason to think that he should be there. He knows they had records of him, evidence of his withering sanity. But for his own sake he keeps quiet.

Because he talks to people who aren't there and favours them over the people who are, and he knows his father deplores what he thinks is lying and attention-seeking and brought him here despite his mother's weak protests, and even though he knows everyone who tries to be nice to him are masking their fear and confusion, no one ever stops to think about how Norman thinks about himself.

Norman loathes his own existence, his own being, his own life. He's always contemplating the reason why he's happier with the dead. He's been looking at life through the glass of his own coffin.

But he's never experienced something like this.

He never thought the dead could suffer like this. Ghosts always seem happier, more optimistic than the ones who are supposed to be grateful to be alive. But they just won't stop crying, screaming, and he's tried to ignore it because they wouldn't go away. But it wasn't until now, late at night in his bed and locked in his room, that he felt like doing the same. Like screaming.

His heart almost stops when he feels the bed begin to shake under him.

His ears pop as he pries his hands away to clutch the springy mattresses, digging his fingers into the fabric, breathing spastically. The rumble of the bed grows and grows until it was practically banging against the back wall and he finally jumps off, scrambling to the far corner of the room, watching in sheer terror as the bed overturns and is thrown against the opposite wall by a force he knows is spiritual.

He's too stunned to realize that for once, it's silent.

No crying.

No screaming.

No suffering.

Until a translucent greenish figure of a girl with pigtails appears, dark holes where her eyes should be and black tear stains streaked across her cheeks, and her mouth stretched to an inhuman length to let out an unearthly abnormal screech that rattled Norman's skeleton and made him claw at his ears until he too was screaming.

✘

"You nearly woke up everyone," says the woman, leaning forward a bit to get a look at Norman's blank face.

_ Don't give her answers. _

He's not aware of that the fogginess of his eyes makes him look like his soul floated from his mouth. He's not aware of the woman's questions and concerns, big doe eyes full of a worry he's not ready to believe.

All he can hear are the voices.

No crying.

No screaming.

Suffering.

"Norman? Norman, honey?"

Incoherent words, too many voices,  _ they're lying _ , children pleading, adults begging,  _ it's all lies _ , hissing, whispering, desperation,  _ lies _ ,  _ lies _ ,  _ lies _ .

"Norman, sweetie, I can let you go to bed if you just answer a few questions—"

"How many people have died here?"

His eyes look dead straight into hers and after exactly two months of complete silence and foggy eyes that never seemed to meet anyone else's, the woman witnesses the being inside Norman, past all the barricades and walls.

And Norman is angry.

The question stupefies the woman and she chokes on her words, slightly unnerved by the grimness of the boy's seeping anger. It takes her a full moment to gain her composure, but even then she's not prepared to answer such an unexpected question. "What are you talking about, Norman?"

The single light bulb on the ceiling flickers a bit, buzzing.

Norman feels his blood boil at the sight of her sickeningly sweet smile, agitated by the fact that she was playing dumb.

_ "She thinks you're the dumb one." _

His voice is quiet, a whisper, but furious nonetheless. "They're all here. They're all  _ suffering _ because of what you people did to them. And they can't escape. They're  _ trapped _ ."

"Norman." She laughs like he's a delusional child that's too stubborn to learn their lesson. She laughs like she's amused. And he wants that stupid goddamn smile to just drop already. "We're here to give you shelter and food and keep you safe."

"You shouldn't lie."

The glasses of water on the table between then whips against the wall and shatters into broken glass, pools of chlorinated and filtered water spreading across the floor. At that the woman stands, shocked and terrified. He holds back a snicker as she finally frowns, her cheeks finally getting a break.

Norman, unfazed, tells her in a much more steady confident voice, "I'm gonna ask you again. How many people have died here?"

Horror is etched into her face as she tries to step back, only for her thigh to bump against the wooden chair behind her. Much to Norman's dismay, she shakes her head.

_ "She's the dumb one." _

Norman's eyes flicker to the woman's chair and two seconds later the piece of furniture is hurled against the wall with a mighty thud, and the corner of his mouth twitches shortly into the beginnings of a satisfied smile at her horrified shriek. He never thought he would feel so satisfied seeing terror, seeing the people around him scared of him, even if it wasn't his doing.

She swallows her composure down hard and leans a hand on the table to look into Norman's eyes. And for once, she's serious. "There are just some things that I'm not authorized to say."

"Bullshit."

The wooden table is thrown up while her hand is still on it, and she only has one moment to react, and ends up falling backwards as the table slams against the wall and stays there, table legs poking out. The corner of the wood must have gotten her nose because she's bleeding.

He's not sure why he sees dead people as transparent green ghosts, but that's how his sight works. And that's what happens; green figures surround him, crowding the room, all just as furious as he was. There's the girl with pigtails — along with two more children with missing eyes, a little girl with Gothic styled clothing, and strangely enough, trolls wearing boxes.

It's been awhile since he's felt the need to cry and mourn over death. The fact that he was always surrounded by death made him numb to the grief and sorrow. But now witnessing the suffering and pain these people are going through, even through the afterlife, makes the salt tears sting the brims of his eyes. Despite that, he doesn't dare cry.

He doesn't need to cry in grief in front of the people who've been crying in pain for God knows how long.

He stands over her (despite being pretty short for his age) with eyes of steel and building rage. The people surround him, glaring down at her.

Norman feels the chilly wind-like feeling of a ghost making physical contact with him. He's not knowledgeable around the physics of it, but he knows that ghosts can touch him, and he could touch them.

It's the girl with the Gothic styled clothing. Only then does he realize the sparks going around her head.

She stands on her tip toes to whisper into his ear. It sounds like two voices instead of one.

_ "I can take you to a garden full of red flowers in bloom." _

The woman is up on her feet given these moments of settled actions, and she uses them in an attempt to escape the room, but before her hand could even graze the doorknob the chair flies over and wedges its back under the knob. She tries to shake the chair free from the position but it's stuck.

She turns back to Norman with clenched teeth. "Let me out!"

He simply shrugs. "I'm not the one doing it."

The ghost girl beside him giggles.

She doesn't bother attempting to understand and instead pounds her palm against the door, crying for help.

Norman feels the ghost girl tugging on his wrist, and he turns to see that the other spirits have vanished. She walks along the broken glass by the wall like a child in a flower field.

She looks at him, smiling.  _ "Can you plant a red flower for me?" _

He's not completely sure as to why he picks up the glass shard. He gains a sense that he could be sleepwalking. His nerves are numb. His body's light. His mind is fuzzy and cold.

He's aware the woman's screams are louder now. He's aware of the distance between him and the woman closing in, the shard tightly in his hand, ignoring the slight cuts in his fingers.

He's not aware of what he's about to do.

_ "Red flowers, red flowers. Add her to the list. She deserves it. They all do." _

The door in blown open, knocking the woman to the side. There are men with guns in their hands and extras latched to their belts, and as they drag him out, he turns to look over his shoulder.

A girl with sparks in her hair. Three children with no eyes. Trolls with stitches all around wearing boxes. And many more.

They were all suffering.

And they were all angry.


	2. colour

**col·or/ˈkələr/**

**the property possessed by an object of producing different sensations on the eye as a result of the way the object reflects or emits light**

**✘**

**CORALINE** has a collection of voodoo dolls. Although she may feel just a tad grateful that they offer her materials and encourage her to continue on, she's smart enough to know an asylum was supposed to aid her in her recovery — lend her a life jacket so she doesn't drown any deeper into insanity. Last time she checked, making voodoo dolls for every single person she meets isn't exactly sane.

She searches the cafeteria for that boy wearing a box — she thinks his name is Eggs, but there's a fair reason to doubt it. Once she catches sight of him next to a short girl with ginger pigtails, she holds the doll that she finished making just a second ago and judges the comparison between the two. It's not surprising how accurate the details are.

Coraline already accepted that she wasn't right in the head.

But she likes the thought of being 'different'.

She still remembers the time she used to go to school — more specifically her new school in Pontiac, Michigan. The girls there were all annoying, bratty little gossip queens who were afraid to get their hands dirty. They called her a water witch because of her blue hair, and a downright menace for expressing attitude towards the teachers. The last thing she wanted to be was one of them. The first thing she wanted to be was different. The insanity was just a plus.

As she stands up from her position against the wall, the hollow ache in her stomach is ignored, for not even half of the food on her tray will be digested. She saunters over to the trash and dumps the remaining food into the black bag, adding the clear tray to the pile on top.

She hasn't eaten in three days. There hasn't been any food that wasn't disgusting since then. So she ignores the hunger because it's just pain, and there's so many other kinds of pain she's enduring.

Nothing else is real but pain.

✘

Ever since her arrival at the asylum, a boy with a hunchback named Wybie would try to talk to her, claiming that he's never met a water witch before. Coraline found him incessantly annoying, like a fly in her ear. He just kept talking and talking and talking and she just couldn't take it.

Coraline is a smart girl who found a few ways around security. One night, she sneaks into Wybie's room, tired of his endless prattling. Using a syringe, she injects some sort of painkiller she scavenged out in some of the medical areas of the west wing into his neck.

"You need to learn how to shut up," she whispers, taking a needle and thread from her pocket.

The next morning Wybie wakes up with his mouth sewn shut.

And even though the 'generous' use of a painkiller made him numb to the feel of coarse black wool protruding the flesh of his lips, he still screams — or tries to, at least. The cries of terror are muffled and pathetic, and all the while Coraline laughs, watching from around the corner, just being able to make out the interior of the infirmary, where they attempt to unlace his mouth.

When they're done, little red marks are dotted along the lining of his slightly ajar lips. Colour. Coraline enjoys colour. In a colourless world, it's a simple pleasure. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches the blue-haired girl, and it's like he sees a ghost with the way his legs are brought to his chest, eye widening, his body trembling.

His red-lined lips move into words she can't quite hear, but knows well of what they are.

"You're crazy."

And a small knowing smile graces her lips. But she then pities him for the fact that his presence here could only mean one thing: he's crazy, too.

Why is this prattling boy with a hunchback here anyway?

This question awakes a new found curiosity that makes the corner of her brain throb a bit. Despite the certain water witch crap, he seems reasonably different than the kids she'd met who didn't have quirky thought processes or inhumane desires. They'd never sew someone's mouth shut. This got Coraline thinking: what would Wybie do?

Wybie still has his eyes on her like a frightened prey, waiting for their predator to stalk away with a sudden disinterest. Unlucky for him, Coraline did the exact opposite: walk towards him with a thirst for knowledge on the given subject. And he squinches, squeezing his legs, his chin disappearing between his knees, always keeping a cautionary eye on her.

Just a mere few feet apart now.

"How far?" she asks, almost casually. She isn't smiling, or showing any signs of prominent enthusiasm. But something about how she asked and that almost benevolent gleam of interest in her eyes makes her seem truthful.

His eyebrows furrow slightly. "Huh?"

"How far did you sink," she asks with a smaller voice, "into insanity?"

He doesn't think when he counters defensively, "Not as far as you."

Coraline purses her lips, crossing her arms with eyes no longer looking at him, but down the hall, and Wybie gulps, thinking that he might have angered her.

"I meant,"—her tongue is a spark against the 't', and she snaps her head back at him—"why're you here?" Her voice had a frustrated edge to it. To answer, he thought through what he was about to say.

It then strikes him that Coraline isn't the type to ask peculiar questions for no profound reason.

"Why do you wanna know?" he asks, trying to keep a callous tone, though his voice is quivering from his trembling hands. "S'not like you like me very much."

"I don't," she admits blatantly, no emotion whatsoever. She leans her shoulder against the wooden doorframe, like insanity was something spoken about nonchalantly over the phone. "I just wanna know your pain."

Wybie shifts uncomfortably. "Why?"

No reply.

When he tries to purse his lips in frustration, he winces from the pain. "Wh-Why do you wanna know so badly?"

Still nothing.

And at her silence, something in him snaps. "I'm not telling you anything, Jonesy!"

Jonesy. That's what he started calling her when he discovered her full name. Coraline Jones. He'd said it wasn't a normal name, and most people have more regular names like Caroline.

It isn't the first time she's heard that little nickname. One of the girls had blurted out that name in laughter as she and some other wannabes tried to trap her inside a bathroom stall.

"I hate that name."

She remembers kicking the girl back so hard she slammed against the back wall.

"I fucking hate that name."

She remembers her friends backing up, taking terrified glances at each other. When the girl she kicked attempted to stand up, Coraline grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head repeatedly against the sink. She doesn't remember stopping.

"J-Jon . . . I mean, Caroline?"

_ Caroline? _

. . . There's a long, deafening pause

And Coraline starts laughing.

She stumbles against the doorframe for support, her head down, her shoulders bouncing, and she laughs and laughs and laughs.

The nurses in the background stop to watch anxiously. Wybie is a bit concerned, but he can't help but feel utter terror in his nerves as he watches the blue-haired water-witch laughs her sanity away. And his heart seems to rattle even more when she sinks a hand into her dark red messenger bag.

Coraline Jones killed a girl and ended up in the Inimical Mental Hospital.

Wybie's heart stops when she pulls out a doll from her bag. A doll that looks exactly like him.

She looks back up at him, smile gone.

"You. Are such. An IDIOT!"

In the first second, Coraline uses a needle to slash a huge rip across the doll's chest, puffy white cotton protruding from fabric. The next second, blood sprays across her face from the huge gash across Wybie's chest, identical to the doll's.

Because no one ever noticed the monster inside Coraline. The monster who doesn't care and doesn't feel. She hangs around the blind spider-like lady with bandages over her eyes and thin metal fingers as if she's her mother, but we all know Coraline's real parents abandoned her physically at the asylum and emotionally years ago. She was left alone with her dolls and the intricate button-eyed Wonderland taking place in the depths of her mind and the dreams she still hopes that one day, it will all come true.

She has a certain respect for her imagination, because she's well aware that nothing in actuality is really actual. Nothing is real. Not even her. Everything and everyone is as fake as a doll.

And as they take her away, she watches as Wybie's body is paralyzed from the shock, the pain being the only thing happening. Because nothing else is real but pain.

Yet, all she can think of is the bright red colour of his blood. Coraline loves colour.

✘

Coraline can't help but think they put her here on purpose. A padded room that is nothing but stupid fucking white.

She tries to focus on the little dried drops of blood from sewing Wybie's mouth that were built under her nails and stayed there even after she washed her hands, but it's not good enough. Focusing on her blue hair doesn't help either. Her eyes search every inch and corner of the room for something, but it's all white. Blindingly white.

She resents this room with every fiber of her being.

Not knowing what else to do, she closes her eyes and watches the negative colours swirl under her eyelids as the hollow feeling in her stomach grows. She still hasn't eaten.

After hours that feel absolutely timeless, she knows she's fallen asleep when all she could see was a family that loved her and dreams coming true, because Coraline has her very own Wonderland where everything is to her liking. Even her very own shiny black button eyes make her happy.

Someone opens the door to her room and she's about to pounce on whoever brought her back to reality.

But it's the lady with mechanical spider legs and bandages over her eyes. The lady beckons her with a thin metal finger, and in a smooth voice with just a few cracks, she smiles and says, "Come, Coraline. We have some things to discuss."


	3. betray

**be·tray\bi-ˈtrā, bē-\**

**to hurt (someone who trusts you, such as a friend or relative) by not giving help or by doing something morally wrong**

**✘**

**EGGS** isn't a fan of people.

Now, trapped in this place, everything- _ everyone _ -was a thousand times worse.

Back in the streets, he was safe underground along with the other trolls. It was only up at the surface did his life ever include people. He knew they were hunted for, and they might still be. When he was captured, they didn't take him to the place they kept the others. They sent him here, and no matter where he looked, he didn't encounter a single troll.

They try to cover this up by giving him gadgets and gizmos to fiddle with. But he knows, when they don't bother to answer his questions about the boxtrolls, that everything is a lie.

If it wasn't for Winnie, he'd absolutely detest this place. He also liked the nurses, and the lady that asked him all kinds of questions. He couldn't quite answer all of them though. The lady was vague when he would ask questions, like when he wondered where the other boxtrolls were or why he was there in the first place.

But she was nice. Just like the nurses. Just like Winnie. They were all nice people.

Eggs didn't even know people could be.

(Well, damn-boys with hearts aren't fit for betrayal, and if only betrayal knew of that . . . or maybe it simply lacked a heart itself.)

✘

**LADY:** How are you doing today, Eggs?

**EGGS:** Um, alright, I guess?

**LADY:** Good. I'm just gonna need you to answer a few questions.

**EGGS:** . . . Where's Fish?

**LADY:** We need you to focus, honey.

**EGGS:** 'Honey'?

**LADY:** Haven't you heard your mother call you that?

**EGGS:** What's a 'mother'?

**LADY:** Do you know what a father is?

**EGGS:** No, I don't . . . Sh-Should I?

**LADY:** Brothers. Sisters. Aunts and Uncles. Don't you have a family, Eggs?

**EGGS:** W-What's a 'family'--what are you talking about?

**LADY:** . . . Okay. Eggs. You grew up with boxtrolls your whole life. They've always been there for you. You've never been around people before?

**EGGS:** I-I don't get this--

**LADY:** Just answer the question.

**EGGS:** Um, not like this . . .

**LADY:** . . . Huh. Everything is wrong. Even your name is wrong, it just says that on the box you're wearing.

**EGGS:** What are you talking about? My name  _ is _ Eggs. No one calls me anything else!

**LADY:** We're done for today. I have work to do.

**EGGS:** Wait, what's wrong with my name? Why would you ask me if I've been around boxtrolls my whole life when I  _ am _ a boxtroll? You still didn't tell me what a family is--

**LADY:** Eggs, honey, I know you're--

**EGGS:** _Don't_ call me honey. My name is _Eggs._

**LADY:** Okay,  _ Eggs _ . I'll tell you what a family is next session. (After I find out who you really are.)

✘

He sits at a cafeteria table with Winnie, pissed the fuck off.

(The nurses used to be nice . . . or was that all just a lie? Was he wrong about that?)

The lingering rage and confusion from the previous session is making his head wobbly and his breaths hot through his nose. The anger feels like a fever.

So many questions questions questions crowding his thoughts and standing on his tongue. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Winnie's blatant glare that lets him know it's obvious he's conflicted, so before she could question him, he beats her to it.

"What's a family?" he asks. His tone is like the snapping bite of a Venus Flytrap, and Winnie's head pulls back in surprise before returning to her natural questioning glare.

Though even that expression is temporary, because, as she takes in the question, Winnie's features gradually soften in a way that Eggs has never seen before. It makes him confused, and that makes him frustrated, because all this confusion is driving him mad.

"Don't you have a family, Eggs?" she asks, uncharacteristically gentle.

"No!" Eggs practically yells at her, and immediately feels guilty when there's a rough strain in his throat and a genuine worry swirling in Winnie's eyes. It doesn't-he . . . something doesn't feel right. "I mean, sho-should I? It doesn't seem like something I would know. I-Is it a human thing or . . . ?"

Winnie's eyebrows furrowed slightly, her lips twisting, but her gaze on him was steady and solid. "You still think you're a boxtroll, don't you, Eggs?"

And it takes every fiber of his being to contain the building fury inside him because his confusion just might be the thing that makes him shatter.

Because it feels like betrayal when she's been the  _ one true person _ that made him feel sane.

"Winnie." He's not sure if he's furious or hurt, but his voice is cracked and close to completely breaking apart. "I  _ am _ a boxtroll. You--You  _ know _ that I am!"

"Eggs, trust me, just--"

"Why should I trust you when I thought you were the only one who  _ believed _ that I know who I am?!"

She scoffs. "Because I know I'm in a place full of . . .  _ messed up _ people, and I can't just tell you that when there's probably something wrong with you--"

"There is  _ nothing _ wrong with me, Winnie!" He stands up, slamming his palms against the table, his face burning.

So she stands as well and holds out her hand towards him--

"Gimme your hand."

". . . Winnie?"

\--and his eyes grow wide as saucers at the sight of dark red blood coating her hands, like she stuffed her hands into a deep open wound. She's had her hands under the table this whole time that he didn't even notice.

The blood drips onto the table in a very slow rhythm. It sounds alarmingly like a drum in his ears.

"Give me your hand, Eggs!"

His anger seemed to dissolve off his skin, leaving him cold and shivering, leaving him frightened.

"Your hands . . . they're . . ."

She glanced at them, and something lit up in her eyes.

"Oh, right. Didn't I tell you?"

She smiles.

"We were playing a game, one of the workers and I. Well, he was more of a doctor than a worker, really. He brought me to a room and there was a guy hanging from his tied up wrists. He seemed like he was screaming but he had a gag in his mouth and a blindfold over his eyes. He was all wriggling and he reminded me of a worm. Then the doctor gave me a gun and let me hold it, and told me to use it on the guy. It made a really loud noise, but at least the guy stopped wriggling."

Eggs's blood runs cold.

"Then he gave me this sharp thing, like a knife, but not really, and told me I had to get something from the guy. He gave me my very own apron, just like his, but I didn't get gloves like his. He told me to get the liver. So I cut the guy open and got it. No wonder he's been giving me anatomy lessons, not that I needed them, you know?"

She giggles then, to herself. All the while Eggs is struggling to breathe through a tight throat, trying to comprehend what the hell was happening.

"The doctor said I was helping him," Winnie whispers, all dreamy-eyed. "And he said that one day, maybe I could become someone like him; someone who helps people."

(Wrong yet again . . .)

Eggs used to think that the boxtrolls only avoided humans because they were bothersome. All of them were judgmental, selfish, and only cared about money. That was before they began to abduct them. Their boxtroll population dwindled bit by bit, and the boxtrolls basically  _ played it safe _ and never went after them. The mysterious species never knew where the other boxtrolls were kept, what they were doing to them. Eggs could be the last of their kind, for all he knows.

His imaginings of the human race are becoming much,  _ much _ more harsher by the minute.

Because these people are monsters-these  _ humans _ were  _ monsters _ . They're cruel and callous, sickeningly so. Downright _ insane _ . He thought Winnie would be nicer, gentler. (Sure, she isn't much of a gentle person, but she had a heart.) He had some sort of faith. Hope. Trust.

_ God _ , was he wrong. He was so,  _ so _ wrong.

(There's a word for that. A word that he would've given Winnie, let her carry it high with a swelling heart, and it would've glued them together by the hip. Winnie was there for him. Winnie cared (maybe she still does, in some weird twisted form). What was the  _ word _ . . . ?

Well, there's no use of it now. It doesn't matter anymore. She doesn't deserve the word anyway.)

Then: "I can help you, Eggs. I can get you everything you want. All you have to do is ask."

And that's when he  _ runs away _ . He runs to escape the madness but deep down he knows he can't, and he's running blind because that's how he feels right now;  _ blind _ . Blind to the fact that everyone he thought would be there for him all went away.

So he runs, charging through a door and ending up outside, where there's snow on the ground and more in the sky, frosty grass and frozen dirt, and he grips his fingers around the metal fence that's caging him, preventing his escape, and he  _ screams _ .

Everything was terrible.

(What else was he wrong about . . . ?)

And he's unaware of the other kid sitting on the ground with his back against the fence, watching boxtroll-boy suffer.

(At the back of Norman's mind, he gets it:  _ betrayal doesn't have a heart _ .)


	4. scream

**scream/skrēm/**

**give a long, loud, piercing cry or cries expressing excitement, great emotion, or pain.**

**✘**

**NORMAN** watches the boy with a box scream harshly, as if attempting to shatter the sky.

From this angle, he could see the muscles in his neck bulging, his skin a furious red, his bandaged hands gripping the chain-link fence as if he could break through (what a miracle that would be).

It takes a while for the boy to grow quiet, only heavily breathing afterwards. Norman guessed that the boy's throat was torn and raw by that point. Being in an asylum, there was an endless list of possibilities as to why he'd been screaming, and that's both a reason to ask and keep quiet.

But now Norman feels that keeping quiet is intended suicide, because allowing his head to be calm and silent is like an open gateway for the voices to return, and despite now understanding the pain of those trapped souls, he's not ready. Not until he discovers the asylum's secrets as to why these spirits are trapped.

So he speaks. "I came here to scream once . . . it was my first day though."

The boy doesn't jump to the sudden sound of his voice, only slowing, hesitantly turning his head to face him. His face had cooled down a bit from the long pause, and the thick snowflakes descending from the gray sky must have helped, too.

They only looked at each other for a long moment until the boy shifted his position so he's sitting instead of being on his knees, and he practically squeezed himself into the corner of the fence, hugging his knees. A pause extended from there, until the boy finally looked up.

"You—" He cuts himself off when his voice is nothing but  _ raw _ , and he starts again with his voice now only raspy and breaking in different parts, but coherent nonetheless. "You went crazy on your first day?"

Norman nods at the boy, trying to gather up some thoughts, but they're all over the place. "Some people don't know they're crazy, so when they have all this . . .  _ craziness _ , I guess, piled on top of them, they get crushed sooner or later. That's when they scream. Others already know they're crazy and don't really bother screaming . . . you know, unless they wished they  _ weren't _ crazy. For people like me . . . I was in denial."

There's a pause as he tries to gather thoughts that actually make sense. As he thinks back to his home life, shreds of nostalgic sorrow rendezvous at the core of his heart because he still wishes people would just listen to him.

But his brain tells him that he doesn't miss them or care about them at all, so he continues with that hollow tone he knows how to use.

"I didn't think I was crazy. I just thought people didn't like me enough to listen. I thought I was right . . . and they were wrong. When I saw people who weren't alive anymore, they thought I was delusional and seeking attention. I know who I am though, even if they thought I was crazy—"

"Which you're not," Eggs cuts in defensively. Norman looks up, surprised, and the boy with the box continues. "Just because someone thinks you're something doesn't mean you are. You are whoever you say you are."

And that's when Norman looks at him. Really looks at him. "What do people think you are?"

"Human."

. . . Huh. (Norman has to be  _ really _ careful about his next words.)

"And you think—you  _ are _ . . ."—He promptly inspects the  _ apparently-non-human-boy, _ getting the clue that perhaps this box wasn't just an odd sense of style. With more thought into it, the idea did strike some familiarity, but there was no certainty. What was the word . . . ? There's a term he's heard before with some sort of  _ folklore feel _ to it, a campfire mystery, a pop culture myth—". . . a boxtroll."

And just like that, everything about Eggs seems brighter as, for a few seconds, his mouth is only agape in awe, then a small, breathy laugh pops from his throat as a smile overtakes his face.

"Yeah," he says, simply awestruck, "Yeah, exactly."

Norman wonders if others have said the right thing around him. He doubts it. But then he begins to doubt if that was really the right thing to say.

But there's a lightweight feeling in his chest. Because the boy is smiling at him—genuinely. And it would take Norman ages to burrow deep within the recesses of his memory to retrieve such a smile ever directed at him.

He returns the smile, hoping it looks just as genuine.

Norman stands up, dusting off the snow, and wonders when it stopped falling from the sky. He then walks over to the boy—pardon, boxtroll—and offers him a hand and a question: "What's your name?"

He accepts the hand, and when he stands, Norman realizes how much shorter he is compared to the boxtroll-boy. (Well, everyone's pretty much taller than him, so that's not saying much.)

Pointing to the box he's wearing, he replies, "The name's Eggs." And it says Eggs on the box. Go figure.

The shorter boy puts a hand to his chest. "I'm Norman."

"Thank you, Norman."

"For what?"

"Believing in me."

There's a sudden weight in his chest, and somehow he thinks this is gonna haunt him more than the ghosts. "Yeah . . ." is all he can reply with. 


End file.
